María Antonieta Arroyo Villanueva de Peña
María Antonieta Arroyo Villanueva de Peña (born October 30, 1984, full name: María Antonieta María Guadalupe García Zavala Arroyo Castruita Talamantez Villanueva de Peña) is an American Politician, Lawyer, and Senator from New Mexico. Villanueva de Peña is a freshman Senator for the Republican party, and considered an icon of the Tea Party. She has been noted for her aggressive legislating, including a sixteen-hour filibuster, and for a series of debates and conflicts with Democratic members of Congress and other officials on Twitter in 2016, sometimes leading to formal debates. Villanueva de Peña gained further notability through successfully passing a series of legislation through Congress, and has currently passed more of her own legislation than any other freshman Senator. Before the Congress recessed for the summer district period in 2016, Villanueva de Peña was named the Senate Majority Whip, the youngest Senator to hold the position. Early Life María Antonieta Arroyo Castruita Talamantez Villanueva de Peña was born in New Mexico on October 30th, 1984, to immigrant parents. There has been speculation that one or both of her parents were undocumented immigrants, and Villanueva de Peña has been accused of being an "anchor baby" by political opponents. Villanueva de Peña grew up in a low-income, high-crime neighborhood, and has commented that in her formative years, she persevered by the influence of her faith, and her firearm. Through her teenage years, Villanueva de Peña was actively involved in a variety of youth political organizations, particularly Hispanic ones, and groups with general liberal ideologies. She rose to positions of some significance, but ultimately broke away due to disagreements with the direction and purpose of the movements, which Villanueva de Peña saw as becoming "corrupted" through integration of a leftist economic agenda. Education Villanueva de Peña was the first in her family to ever attend college, doing so at the University of New Mexico, where she majored in pre-law, with a focus on Constitutional Law. Payment for the school was based off of a combination of merit scholarships, grants, and full-time work, with Villanueva de Peña holding several jobs at varying times varying from tax services to door-to-door sales to come up with the money, with classes sometimes cut to ensure payment. On graduation, after five years, Villanueva de Peña continued at the college, working towards a Juris Doctor on Constitutional Law. She served in the "flexible time program", working part-time on the degree, and full-time in work, primarily as a waitress, and in cleaning as a secondary job. The part-time studies led to the three-year degree taking five years to complete, at which point she successfully graduated, and passed the State Bar of New Mexico. Early Career Villanueva de Peña expressed no interest in moving into private law, and attempted to find a position in which to use her degree. She had some difficulty establishing herself, and changed positions several times over the next two years, with a limited opportunity to argue cases. She settled down for some time as a public defender, as she continued to work as a waitress in order to pay bills. Political Career Villanueva de Peña's political career began in running for the Republican nomination for the 2014 U.S. Senate election, clinching it, and moving into the general election. There, Villanueva de Peña, not considered to have any significant chance of victory, ran a highly unorthodox campaign, attacking her Democratic opponent from the left on immigration, rallying youth and minority support, while retaining conservative positions elsewhere. The campaign was picked up by national Republican organizations as a chance to take a seat, and the campaign received support from such, The election was decided by an extremely slim margin of some three hundred and sixty-one votes, with Villanueva de Peña victorious. At the age of thirty years and five days, she is believed to be the youngest Senator ever Constitutionally elected. In office, Villanueva de Peña was considered to be one of the most conservative members of the Senate, and a face of the Tea Party, voting in a manner considered strongly conservative, Constitutional, and libertarian, rather than neoconservative. She was noted, however, to be somewhat more liberal on issues of immigration. Villanueva de Peña led a sixteen-hour fillibuster in 2015, and with increasing notability, made the cover of Time Magazine, in somewhat controversial apparel. Legislative History TBA Personal Life Villanueva de Peña is a devout Roman Catholic, closely following the precepts of the religion. She is unmarried, with no children.